Giwaku (Fuji TV Drama Special) (2012) (RAW)

One stormy night, a car of foreign make enters the port at a blistering speed. Travelling on without slowing down, the car even goes over the pier and disappears into the sea… And after a short time, a woman comes to the surface. The woman’s name is Shirakawa Kumako (Ono Machiko). Her maiden name is Onizuka. She is the second wife that Shirakawa Fukutaro (Emoto Akira), the company president of ‘Shirakawaya’, the long-established blacksmith in Niigata, recently married. Kumako swims for dear life and reaches the pier. She shouts at the top of her voice, relishing the fact that she is alive… The next morning, the accident car with its smashed windscreen is recovered in the presence of Assistant Inspector Iwase (Matsushige Yutaka) of Echigo Police Precinct who is inspecting the scene. Shirakawa’s dead body is inside the car. A spanner and shoes were left behind in the front passenger seat too. Before long, a witness, Fujiwara Yoshiro (Tanaka Kotaro), is also found. It is determined from Fujiwara’s statement that Kumako appears to be the one who drove the car. Furthermore, Kumako has several criminal records. The mass media gradually raises an outcry about the accident being a murder for insurance. In Tokyo, the lawyer Sawara Chizuru (Tokiwa Takako) is summoned by her senior, Harayama Maso (Ryu Raita) and visits Niigata. Each time Chizuru falls behind in the rent for the apartment that she lives in in Tokyo, she gets help from Harayama. Chizuru assists with the cases that Harayama’s law firm has received and ends up staying at his house. After a while, important physical evidence and witness statements are gathered. Kumako is arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband and detained at Nishi Niigata Prison. At that moment, Harayama breaks his leg in a fall at home and Chizuru finds herself hurriedly standing in for him as Kumako’s lawyer…

Note:

Tokiwa Takako and Ono Machiko will be the double leads for FujiTV drama SP “Giwaku” (Suspicion) which is the third installment under the Matsumoto Seicho 20th Death Anniversary Project. This will also be the first time that the two actresses are working together.

Tokiwa plays a lawyer Sahara Chizuru who defends Shirakawa Kumako, a violent woman accused of killing her husband for insurance money in this SP based on Matsumoto’s novel. In the original story, Sahara was a man but the producers decided to change it to a female so that they can show the contrast between Chizuru and Kumako who represent the extremes of good and evil.